The Democratic governor whose message is unbeatable

Shapiro remembers being notified of the event around 7 a.m. on a Sunday morning. “I was hoping the word ‘collapse’ was an artistic term that didn’t actually mean collapsed,” he recalls. He said it was during a helicopter ride that he and his team came up with the idea that perhaps a temporary bridge could be built relatively quickly by simply stacking tons of “aggregates” (recycled glass). on the roadway below the bridge and installing a temporary bridge. lie on it. Even that, by rights, might have taken longer without the expectations set by Shapiro. “There were a few moments where the engineers and others said, ‘Look, give us a few weeks and we’ll come back to you with our plan,'” he recalls. “And I said, ‘Great, you have an hour.’ » A rebuilding plan was in place, he told me, by the end of the first day.

And that’s how you get a 59 percent approval rating in a sharply divided state. Other recent polls put him in the mid-50s.

He’s taken a few hits, that’s for sure. A top aide resigned last year after being accused of sexually assaulting an aide. The assistant had a history along these lines, so the question arose as to what Shapiro knew and when he knew it. Shapiro defended his record on combating sexual abuse, including releasing a report on abuse by Catholic clergy, but he sidestepped questions about aid. As a candidate, he had supported school choice, a rare and strange position for a Democrat. As governor, he vetoed a scholarship program, and conservatives went crazy against him. Right now, he’s haggling with lawmakers — Democrats control the Lower House, while Republicans have the state Senate — over the budget, which is due June 30. Shapiro is seeking billions for education, mass transit, and industrial and high-tech infrastructure projects. When we spoke, he said Republican lawmakers aren’t putting up a huge fight yet, but we won’t really get any answers until June.